What Is the NYU Policing Project, and Why Did the Police Chief Resign from their Board? Until Monday, Police Chief Shon Barnes was on the board of the Policing Project, which Mayor Wilson has tapped to do a security audit of police surveillance cameras here. By Erica C. Barnett On Monday,…

Latest piece for The Guardian, digging into the ways new SEC guidance around crypto may be a boon for the Trump family’s various crypto projects: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

POLY IN OLY: Olympia WA just became the first Washington city to pass protections for people in polyamorous relationships. Is Seattle next? www.knkx.org/politics/202...

the most delightful thing i’ve seen this week: @chum.news has a new column from a Washington State Ferries deckhand! www.chum.news/ferry-tales-...

To do this, anti-trans lawmakers in Kansas moved fast to change the law, overrode the governor’s veto, and pushed for the legal changes to go into effect nearly immediately. That kind of power—to void gender on official documents, to compel gender conformity—is terrifying and it will not stop here.

WEEKEND READ: On February 9, youth activists converged on Olympia, with the Millionaires Tax’s future hanging in the balance ⚖️ We sent investigative reporter Brandon Block to cover the activists’ trip to the Capitol, along with a bag of disposable cameras: www.chum.news/youth-activi...

Join CHUM News for our latest party, CHUM LOVE, on Saturday, February 21 at The Fishbowl (424 2nd Ave. West) from 7 to ~10PM 🗓️ We’re repurposing Valentine’s Day energy into something more literary, platonic, and civically oriented 😌 RSVP below 💌 forms.gle/JDj78qcYkCYG...

My latest piece for @theguardian.com covers Jeffrey Epstein's newly revealed ties to the crypto sector, including his early-stage investments in Coinbase and the Bitcoin ecosystem: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How cryptocurrency’s second largest coin missed out on the industry’s boom

The young activists serving on Katie Wilson's transition team have a political platform: That includes establishing a *paid*, elected youth advisory council that'd report to the Mayor—helping entrench youth political power in Seattle. [warning: cheeky article title] www.chum.news/seattles-hot...

Why celebrities are loving crypto again in Trump’s second term

Author @maxdelsohn.bsky.social’s first-ever published book, Crawl, a series of short stories about transmasc life in Seattle in the 2010s, is the most delightful—and sometimes also devastating—thing we’ve read this year. The first in our “Dining and Writing” series: www.chum.news/dining-writi...

I’ve helped launch a new independent media outlet in Seattle called @chum.news. Issue #1 included: • An exit interview with the drag-queen doppelgänger of our city council’s unpopular president • Speculative fiction about the “Seattle Freeze” • Coverage of transmasc life in 2010s Seattle + more

We also have a deep dive into credit unions, which began as an alternative to increase community lending and now have behemoths that act more like big banks, including by purchasing banks wholesale and making them tax-exempt. This is from freelance writer Adam Willems: prospect.org/2025/11/25/c...

I don't know if this election will follow the same pattern because the counting has been a little different this year, but here's M. Lorena Gonzalez's vote share by day from 2021. Friday was her peak.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has a 7-percentage-point lead (53.3% to 46.2%) over progressive challenger Katie Wilson. But there is a very good chance he will end up losing. 🧵 1/7

Quoted here about the increasing intersection of right-wing Christianity & Tech. Had a very much longer conversation than there was space for, touching on mutations of Christian-inflected belief & eschatology in re: the Singularity hype & pushes toward, e.g., "consciousness uploading" & now "AGI"…

My first piece for @theguardian.com covers ex-Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s role at Gloo; he’s helping the company build AI products for Christian ministry, and soft-power advances Gloo’s mission in Silicon Valley, DC, and beyond.

Good job Sora 2 has watermarks on its videos (people have already made tools that instantly remove the watermark) www.404media.co/sora-2-water...

Larry Ellison envisions a surveillance state in which techbros rule. '“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on,” Ellison said in an hour-long Q&A during Oracle’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.'

Today, I was laid off from Cascade PBS along with my entire team and most of the newsroom. I'll have more to say, but I have loved my time as news editor alongside some of the best journalists I have ever worked with. Every time a newsroom closes, stories go with it. The silence that follows is loud

All mayors seek political advice, but Mayor Bruce Harrell had his campaign strategist on a city funded contract for the first 3 years of his term, a legal but “strange” and “different” arrangement. W/ @jimbrunner.bsky.social www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

The GENIUS Act barred stablecoin issuers from paying interest. But in allowing cryptocurrency exchanges to offer rewards, it set off a high-stakes clash with the US banking industry. www.wired.com/story/genius...

46 Seattle journalists and media workers have now signed onto our open letter condemning Israel's killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza and calling for their protection

ah, very exciting

For @wired.com, I covered the fundraise of Erebor Bank, the “pay to play” regulatory landscape allegedly taking shape, and its potential implications for banking writ large

going to keep saying: a society that would like to maintain its basic functions has really got to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by people in positions of authority

notable that the WHPC still hasn't taken this step in response to the unlawful barring of the Associated Press from events.

“total rethinks of education” is how we got here. Maybe we need less rethinking it and more doing it.

yes, ChatGPT is in schools; there are K-12 school districts and DOEs entering into AI contracts, too. so rather than panicking over the death of academia as a foregone conclusion—particularly when LLMs are frequently wrong—why don't we talk about the climate costs of AI? my latest @teenvogue.com

BREAKING: The World Food Program says its food stocks in Gaza have run out under Israel’s nearly 8-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.

This should be the top story in Axios’s morning read. But it isn’t. It’s the FIFTH top story. @axios.com www.axios.com/2025/04/23/t...

The government being down with subscription military tech is an advanced state of oligarchy.

Correct

Today we're publishing a monster feature that dives deep into the initial six weeks over Elon Musk's government takeover. Our entire newsroom came together to help make this story happen. Read this culmination of our blood, sweat, and tears:

Then the mayor says the following, re: Khalil: "What I'm finding surprising is the level of support you're all displaying, but I didn't see that support for me"

"The choice of victim is extremely strategic. Defending Khalil invokes political costs they don’t believe either Columbia University or the Democrats are willing to incur. So far, they are correct."

Buckle up

Atlanta Fed's Q1 growth forecast slipped last week from 2.3% to -1.5%. It's down to -2.8% as of this morning.

This morning, Seattle’s paper of record published an op-ed claiming that trans kids’ participation in WA girls sports “gives boys access to girls teams and locker rooms” and tells “all of our young female athletes that boys are more important than they are.”

A few days late to this but CFPB now has a tip line (on X, of course) for people to complain if agency employees are still doing their jobs. HuffPost confirmed it was legit.

DOGE has left the Hanford nuclear cleanup site with a “skeleton crew,” according to Sen. Patty Murray. The Bonneville Power Administration is also in DOGE’s crosshairs, which may affect energy reliability and costs in the PNW. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

I'm hearing now that *every* technologist CFPB hired to investigate Big Tech was fired this evening. That's somewhere between 70-100 people. wired.com/story/dozens-of-cfpb-workers-terminated-in-after-hours-firing-blitz/

We won!!!!!!!

New @cascadepbsnewsroom.bsky.social, Seattle businesses including Microsoft & Amazon have spent more than $500K to oppose a new tax to fund social housing that's going before voters on Feb. 11. A new poll found voters are nearly evenly split between Prop 1A & 1B www.cascadepbs.org/briefs/2025/...

So much attention has been paid to Elon's college-age DOGE bros. But @propublica.org's roundup of 20+ members of Musk's demolition crew shows that it's largely comprised of alleged adults, including Katie Miller (wife of Trump whisperer Stephen Miller) projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-do...

The South Seattle Emerald welcomes Florangela Davila as its new Executive Director, succeeding Michael McPhearson. A longtime journalist and newsroom leader, she brings a deep commitment to community storytelling and equity. Read more here: https://soseaem.org/4hFjmFZ #SeattleNews

I wrote about Musk and this bureaucratic coup as plainly as I could. There's reporting in here & the particulars are overwhelming but what's happening is so clear: He's not trying to run the federal govt like a software company He's trying to turn it into a political weapon. (gift link)

For Seattle Met, I profiled Seattle's youngest councilmember, @alexis4seattle.bsky.social, who received the most votes for any Seattle politician ever. (feat. @washingtonbus.org) www.seattlemet.com/news-and-cit...